As the United States prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan, along with with all their political poodles, leaving behind units of special forces and hired mercenaries to continue to protect the Afghan government from the Taliban, the latest calculations of the cost of that war has been released 

Microsoft Word – Davidson_AlliesCostsofWar_Final.docx (brown.edu)

 The U.S. had the highest number of allied fatalities in Afghanistan between October 2001 and September 2017—2,316. During that period, 455 troops from the U.K. died, along with 158 Canadians, 86 French, 54 Germans, and 48 Italians.

Significant sums of military spending was used in Afghanistan. From 2001 to 2018, while the U.S. spent $730 billion, the U.K. spent $28.2 billion, Canada $12.7 billion, Germany $11.1 billion, Italy $8.9 billion, and France $3.9 billion.

 Each nation also provided from 2001 to 2018 billion of dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan which still remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The US donated $32.32 billion, Germany gave $5.88 billion, the UK’s contribution to aid was $4.79 billion, Canada, 2.42billion , Italy, almost one billion and France, just over half a billion in foreign aid.

Nationalism, By Jingo!

Between green fields of the Somme and Flanders

All those young officers and other ranks,

Most civilians in uniform, thanks

To a populist conceit that panders

To national myths and visceral sentiment,

Illusions of sovereignty wrapped in flags

The perfidious politician snags

The heart strings of all those who blindly vent

Their discontents without any vision

Of how matters might be. But, lines on maps

Too often become battle lines, with saps

Filled by the dead. Come moments of decision,

How lots are cast determine gains or losses,

Greener fields, or rank on rank of crosses.

D. A. 

 NHS England-funded  research  analysed the records of 3,347 children who died in England between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020, identified a clear association between the risk of death and level of deprivation, for all categories of death apart from cancer.

It concluded that more than a fifth (23%) of all child deaths might be avoided if children living in the most deprived areas had the same mortality risk as those living in the least deprived areas.

It means about 700 child deaths could be avoided each year in England by reducing rates of social deprivation.

Child deaths are linked to social deprivation in England – NHS report | Inequality | The Guardian

 Officers from Home Office Border Force tried to undertake the detention of two men in Glasgow but was met by an overwhelming display of opposition and expressions of solidarity as the street filled with hundreds of local people determined to foil the authorities attempts, successfully ensuring the release of the two Indian men.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-57100259

 Too many people. Too few people. Capitalism is always in crisis.

China’s gross domestic product has increased at an average annual rate of about 8 per cent since 2000. The equivalent figure for the US has been a bit less than 2 per cent. As things stand, 

China will contribute more than one-fifth of the total increase in global GDP in the five years through 2026, according to Bloomberg calculations based on International Monetary Fund forecasts published April. 

The US will account for 14.8 per cent, with India and Japan chipping in 8.4 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively. Anemic population growth, or an outright drop, is likely to mean slower overall expansion, even if GDP per capita may continue to climb.

The working-age population in China dropped to 63.4 per cent from more than 70 per cent a decade ago, while the share of residents aged 60 and above has risen. 

 Japan’s population peaked in 2010 and South Korea logged its first dip in 2020. Singapore reported its first decline since 2003 last year. 

 These nations has long contended with an aging society and a diminished fertility rate, with its citizens consistently resisting policies to produce more children. Living standards rise, people spend more time in school, get married later, face more expensive living costs and want to spend more on the one child they do have. 

What effect might China’s shrinking population have on the world? | The Independent

 “A small number of corporate CEOs and wealthy investors have profited in the midst of this pandemic…” says a new report from Oxfam America. Like other corporate giants, Amazon has reduced its tax bill by “taking advantage of loopholes in the U.S. tax code that allow the company to treat rewarding rich executives with stock options as a tax write-off; carrying forward operating losses from years earlier; and parking profits in tax havens,” Oxfam explained.

Despite raking in a record $20 billion in domestic profits amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon’s federal tax rate was just 9% in 2020, which is significantly lower than the 22% tax rate paid by the average U.S. worker. 

According to Oxfam’s calculations, taxing Amazon at the current U.S. corporate rate of 21% would raise an additional $2.5 billion per year, which is enough to provide Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to 1.7 million Americans facing hunger.

In addition, a 3% wealth tax on Bezos’ $198 billion fortune would yield $6 billion in revenue—enough to provide child care to the 440,000 kids under the age of four in Amazon’s home state of Washington.

Finally, a pandemic profits tax on Amazon would generate an additional $11 billion. That’s enough to pay for 580 million coronavirus vaccines at the current average cost of $19 per dose, although “prices can and should be far lower than this to make vaccinating the world possible,” Oxfam noted.

Tax on Amazon’s Pandemic Profits Could Pay to Vaccinate 580 Million People Worldwide: Oxfam | Common Dreams News

It is a pity that Oxfam cannot go any further in its remedies than to recommend higher taxation on the capitalist class.

 Compiled by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), a 13-member committee formed last year as the coronavirus spread across the world, a new report—titled Covid-19: Make it the Last Pandemic (pdf)—warns fundamental changes must be made to defeat future pandemics.

“Preparation was inconsistent and underfunded,” the official report summary (pdf) reads. “The alert system was too slow—and too meek. The World Health Organization was under-powered. The response has exacerbated inequalities. Global political leadership was absent. The combination of poor strategic choices, unwillingness to tackle inequalities, and an uncoordinated system created a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis.”

The IPPPR said the world must not miss a crucial opportunity for a course correction. The global community “must learn from this crisis, and plan for the next one,” the experts said. “Otherwise, precious time and momentum will be lost…Covid-19 has been a terrible wake-up call. So now the world needs to wake up, and commit to clear targets, additional resources, new measures, and strong leadership to prepare for the future.”

The panel also noted that the pandemic, laid bare inequalities around the globe and within individual countries as middle- and upper-class people were far more able to protect themselves from the virus as the working poor were often left to their own devices on the front lines of the crisis, was able to spread as far as it has because world leaders have been unwilling to tackle inequalities.

 “…The extent to which the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities is an emphatic demonstration of the interconnectedness of social, economic, environmental, and political factors in society,” the report states.

 The rich are now nearly 40% richer than before the coronavirus crisis. Meanwhile, food prices rise, and more and more people go hungry.

Food prices are climbing globally, driving millions into hunger. 

In Nigeria, food inflation rose to 22.95% in March. 

In Indonesia, tofu is now 30% more expensive than it was last year. 

In Lebanon, where nearly half the population lives in poverty, food is about five times as expensive as it was in 2019. 

In Russia, food prices rose 7.7% over the last year. 

In the UK, the pandemic has increased food insecurity; as many as 10% of people now use food banks.

 In 2012, Goldman Sachs made about $400m (£251m) from food speculation; around the same time, tens of millions of people were pushed into poverty because of food prices. 

 Billionaires collectively gained $1.1tn in 2020. Yet large numbers of the world don’t know how they are going to put food on the table while the don’t seem to know what to do with all their cash.  Jeff Bezos is reported to be buying a $500m superyacht. 

While food prices continue to rocket billionaires are building rockets.

Bank balances or food banks?

 A survey of 800 cities around the world, carried out by the Carbon Disclosure Project, found that last year about 43% of them, representing a combined population of 400 million people, did not have a plan to adapt to the climate crisis.

One in four, a quarter, of the cities explained budgetary restraints, a lack the money, was the reason they were unable to prepare to protect themselves against the ravages of climate breakdown.

The planet cannot withstand the onslaught of capitalist culture for very many more years. We are already close to some irreversible tipping points (if we haven’t already reached them). Only a few more years of production for profit, using cheap energy such as coal, will usher in catastrophic global changes. We will have annihilated beyond comprehension vast areas of arable land needed for growing vegetables, despoiled and polluted the supply of fresh water. We are on a march towards planetary suicide. libertarian communism/socialism is where everybody has an equal say in making decisions that affect them and where everybody is assured of equal access to the benefits of society. It’s summed up in the old phrase “from each according to ability, to each according to needs.” There isn’t any reason to keep the wage system after a revolution. As every product is a social product – nobody produces anything in isolation any more – the products themselves ought to be socialised. It’s simply not possible to ascertain the true social value of anyone’s labour, and in truth not worth the effort of finding out. Everybody’s contribution matters. It wouldn’t matter how many surgeons we had, if we didn’t have cleaners ensuring a hygienic workplace. Both contribute to society. Why discriminate in favour of one in the future society? It’ll only preserve the class nature of society. We should move immediately to a system of “to each according to need”. We envisage that autonomous cities and industries will federate together and co-ordinate their activities. With socialism there won’t be any competitive reason not to. With voluntary co-operation there won’t be any need for a centralised authority.

The climate crises are  not just caused by “technology”, and a return to the “simple life” is no answer (though less worship of “progress” might help). Our environment is the world in which we live, and technology offers us means for it to be a good world. But no technique of production is indispensable. There is a substitute for anything, or there soon can be if research resources are channelled in the appropriate direction. Something can be done about global warming, and of course something is to some extent being done, and the reasons for its slowness and indecisiveness are economic, not technical. We will concede it would be incorrect  to suppose that capitalism is doing nothing about the ecological  problem. It is true that the picture has now become more confused with corporations which formerly flaunted their disdain for nature  now  treat the environment as an opportunity for positive  public relations claims. Short-sighted lobbyists often talk as though the choice for capitalism was concern for the environment or economic growth, but the truth is that in the long run a lack of concern for the environment will cut growth. Though government climate-control laws raise the costs of production, corporation do not necessarily mind their costs rising—so long as their competitors are in the exact same boat. Anything which raises costs all round help to eliminate  small businesses to the benefit of the large concerns. 

But to suggest that most big capitalists might welcome carbon-emission restrictions, does not prevent their still having an incentive to bend or break these laws.

 The federal budget unveiled last month by Biden, would give $1.3 billion more to the Israeli military than to the global climate response.

$2.5 billion for international climate programs.

$3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel.